Railway companies that started and finished elsewhere!

[Rover]

I was reading in the Railway Observer magazine about The Northampton and Banbury Junction Railway which neither reached Northampton nor Banbury but somewhere in between.

I live in Chesterfield which, until 1957, there was the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway which ran from Chesterfield to Lincoln, it never reached Lancashire (Warrington) nor the east coast (Sutton on Sea) as it was intended.

This set me thinking, were there any other railway companies with ambitions bigger than their bank balances which never started at nor finished at their titles but existed somewhere in between?

 

[HullMichael]

The Hull & Barnsley Railway never got as far as Barnsley!

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Manchester - Milford did not get to either place.

 

[Rover]

Manchester - Milford did not get to either place.

I initially thought a railway across the Pennines to Yorkshire until I looked it up - Milford Haven!

A very interesting read on wikipedia.

 

[Waldgrun]

It used to be a joke that at one time the three main Welsh narrow gauge lines didn't run to the places used in their names! One the, Talyllyn never has reached the place it takes it name from. So in this vain the tourist line set up at Whipsnade Zoo, was named " The Whipsnade and Umfolozi Railway"!

 

[Merthyr Imp]

The Ambergate, Nottingham & Boston & Eastern Junction Railway only ran between Nottingham and Grantham.

 

[Taunton]

In the USA the St Louis San Francisco Railway (commonly known even in official documents as the "Frisco") ran until quite recent merger across the middle-south of the USA, Missouri, Oklahoma, etc. It never got within 1,500 miles of San Francisco, nor did it ever really form part of any through connection heading from one to the other.

 

[steamybrian]

How did the "Berks and Hants Railway" get its name when the railway never ran in Hampshire or towards it.

Suggest that the Bodmin and Wenford Railway change its name as it is unlikely to ever run to Wenford but more likely to Wadebridge

 

[Taunton]

How did the "Berks and Hants Railway" get its name when the railway never ran in Hampshire or towards it.

The L&SWR had thought of a line from Basingstoke through Newbury to Swindon. The GWR, as a retaliation, proposed the line from Reading to Newbury etc with this name to panic the L&SW with what they intended - which seems to have been successful. The Berks & Hants also built Reading to Basingstoke, which was geographically accurate.

There was also long a major bus company in the same area called Wilts & Dorset (not the current one of the same name), much of whose routes were in Basingstoke, Andover etc in Hampshire, but not much in Dorset.

 

[randyrippley]

There was also long a major bus company in the same area called Wilts & Dorset (not the current one of the same name), much of whose routes were in Basingstoke, Andover etc in Hampshire, but not much in Dorset.

Wilts & Dorset had a regular run down to Weymouth during the summer in the 1960's and 1970's. Any idea which route they took? Were they from Salisbury? They were never as common as the Hants & Dorset visitors into this Southern National outpost, which I presume came from Bournemouth.

 

[Calthrop]

One in the category of “almost achieved its goals, but not quite” is the Santander – Mediterraneo rail route in Spain: as its title suggests, from Santander on the Bay of Biscay south-east to Sagunto on the Mediterranean coast, largely through wild and sparsely-populated country. The southern half of the route, between Sagunto and Calatayud, was opened a century or more ago. Calatayud toward Santander was undertaken with strong government support in the 1920s, and the line was inaugurated most of the way to Santander – but what with various political / economic factors, including the Spanish Civil War, the project was never quite finished : was halted – for keeps, as it proved – with only 39 kilometres left to go, near the route’s northern end. (On this stretch, the almost-7-km.-long Engaña tunnel, through the Cantabrian Mountains, was completed, but track was never laid through it.)

To the best of my knowledge, a more-southerly part of the route – from Sagunto northward via an offshoot to Zaragoza – is still active; but the further-north parts have all been abandoned in recent decades.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Perhaps not geographically specific but it always struck me as interesting that the most westerly station on the GB mainland (Arisaig) was never on the Great Western Railway - lack of effort from Paddington there, chaps. It was, in fact, served by the London and North Eastern Railway (which did, at least, also include the most easterly station, at Lowestoft).

The Southern didn't serve the most southerly station, Helston, which was the GWR's only cardinal point of the compass.

 

[Calthrop]

Perhaps not geographically specific but it always struck me as interesting that the most westerly station on the GB mainland (Arisaig) was never on the Great Western Railway - lack of effort from Paddington there, chaps. It was, in fact, served by the London and North Eastern Railway (which did, at least, also include the most easterly station, at Lowestoft).

The Southern didn't serve the most southerly station, Helston, which was the GWR's only cardinal point of the compass.

The Grouping as it came to be was, geographically, pretty mad, "whichever way you sliced it": probably, unavoidably so. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I love the thing of the London & North Eastern Railway getting into Wales, via the Great Central's lines westward from Chester -- the Great Central wouldn't have been able to fit neatly, geography-wise, into whichever of the Big Four it might have been assigned to.

Perhaps it might have been a good idea to devise less geographically-specific names, for the 1923-onward Big Four?

 

[Taunton]

the most westerly station on the GB mainland (Arisaig) was never on the Great Western Railway - lack of effort from Paddington there, chaps.

At least the GWR was the only company wholly on the west side of the Greenwich meridian.

 

[Bevan Price]

Quite a lot of early railway proposals never got anywhere, being unable to raise enough money. And others, some quite large, served only oneof the places named in the title.

So, the Manchester & Leeds (later part of L&YR) got no closer to Leeds than Normanton & Bradford, having to get running powers on other railways to reach Leeds.

And the Manchester & Birmingham got no further than Crewe, having to use the London & Birmingham to get south of Crewe (Both became part of LNWR)

 

[341o2]

It used to be a joke that at one time the three main Welsh narrow gauge lines didn't run to the places used in their names! One the, Talyllyn never has reached the place it takes it name from. So in this vain the tourist line set up at Whipsnade Zoo, was named " The Whipsnade and Umfolozi Railway"!

There has never been an official proposal for the Tallyllyn to reach the lake of that name, why the name was chosen remains something of an enigma.

In Peru, what was the Cuzco to Santa Ana railway, only about half the line was built and there seems no prospect of completion. The portion which has been built is principally used by those visiting Machupicchu

 

[Calthrop]

There has never been an official proposal for the Tallyllyn to reach the lake of that name, why the name was chosen remains something of an enigma.

Not an official proposal, maybe; but I gather that around the turn of the 19th / 20th centuries, a scheme was contemplated to extend the Talyllyn further north-eastward to the lake, and then to extend it further on to join up with the same-2' 3"-gauge Corris Railway. Into the bargain, electrification of the whole lot was envisaged. If that had ever happened; it would have been interesting -- albeit, if it had survived till the present day, mightily different from what we actually do have in those parts.

 

[341o2]

Not an official proposal, maybe; but I gather that around the turn of the 19th / 20th centuries, a scheme was contemplated to extend the Talyllyn further north-eastward to the lake, and then to extend it further on to join up with the same-2' 3"-gauge Corris Railway. Into the bargain, electrification of the whole lot was envisaged. If that had ever happened; it would have been interesting -- albeit, if it had survived till the present day, mightily different from what we actually do have in those parts.

When the Tallyllyn was first proposed, the railway was to run between Aberdovy and Towyn, this scheme was modified to between the quarries and Towyn only with the promotion of the Aberystwyth and coast railway - what has become the Cambrian.

The circular tour was run, I am not sure which way round, but it took in both the Corris and Tallyllyn being connected by road via the lake

 

[Calthrop]

The circular tour was run, I am not sure which way round, but it took in both the Corris and Tallyllyn being connected by road via the lake

Till the miserable Great Western, shortly after buying the Corris, withdrew its passenger service in 1931 -- spoiling that particular bit of fun. (It's unusual for the normally sympathetic GWR, to occupy the "villain" role in a scenario of this kind.)

 

[181]

Quite a lot of early railway proposals never got anywhere, being unable to raise enough money. And others, some quite large, served only oneof the places named in the title.

So, the Manchester & Leeds (later part of L&YR) got no closer to Leeds than Normanton & Bradford, having to get running powers on other railways to reach Leeds.

And the Manchester & Birmingham got no further than Crewe, having to use the London & Birmingham to get south of Crewe (Both became part of LNWR)

The Inverness and Aberdeen Junction was similar -- although it did fulfil its name in the sense that it enabled travel between Inverness and Aberdeen, another company had already built the line from Inverness to Nairn, and the Aberdeen end was built by the Great North of Scotland (which although it had a less specific name, arguably also never achieved the geographical range that the name might lead you to expect).

(Would it have been the Grand Junction from Crewe to Birmingham, by the way, or had that already merged with the L&B?).

 

[Taunton]

A particular US favourite was to name the company "xxx and Pacific" for a route in Middle America that never got anywhere near the Pacific. Missouri Pacific, Chicago Rock Island & Pacific, and so on.

Probably the most extreme was the Quanah Acme and Pacific, a 100-mile short line in Texas connecting nowhere in particular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanah,_Acme_and_Pacific_Railway

Opposite extreme was the Santa Fe, officially the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe, long the principal carrier from Chicago to Texas and to Southern California. The three smaller towns of its name, although all served by branches, aren't on any of these main lines.

 

[Calthrop]

A particular US favourite was to name the company "xxx and Pacific" for a route in Middle America that never got anywhere near the Pacific. Missouri Pacific, Chicago Rock Island & Pacific, and so on.

Probably the most extreme was the Quanah Acme and Pacific, a 100-mile short line in Texas connecting nowhere in particular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanah,_Acme_and_Pacific_Railway

The American railroad enthusiast and author Lucius Beebe commented affectionately on this phenomenon: "They were all little lines, and all going to the Pacific".